


The Supernatural Job

by deanswingsbothways



Category: Leverage, Supernatural
Genre: Because these assholes curse a lot and you know it, M/M, Mature for lots of bad language, even if they don't show it on TNT and the CW
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-18 20:38:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2361431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deanswingsbothways/pseuds/deanswingsbothways
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saving each other's lives once every few years doesn't count as a relationship. When Dean Winchester and Eliot Spencer cross paths, there's whiskey and life-threatening situations aplenty, but there's never emotions involved. One misty morning at Singer Salvage changes all of that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Supernatural Job

**Author's Note:**

> I can't write smut, so the mature rating is only for language. Trust me, I tried, but it became weird-ass poker metaphors and cliches and it was... not good.
> 
> This fic's "Present Day" is set somewhere in the middle of season ten of Supernatural, which makes it about two years after the Leverage finale. It also blatantly ignores the fact that Dean and Cas are totally gonna do the do. I really tried to incorporate Cas into this fic for Team Free Will banter, but he got reduced to a cameo appearance when my brain could not reconcile Dean and Cas in the same room without the metric ton of sexual tension that usually ensues.

**Present Day**

Running into Krissy Chambers wasn’t exactly a surprise. The string of mysterious disappearances and deaths pointed squarely towards a vampire nest, and that was kind of her specialty. The world of hunters was small and getting smaller.

The surprising part was that she tried to hit Dean.

No, sorry, not tried. Did hit him. Hard. With a beautifully quick right-left-right that caught him completely off-guard in it’s ruthlessness, more fluid than any close-quarters attack Sam had ever seen. Even as the thought entered Sam’s head, he realized that wasn’t exactly true. He’d seen exactly one other person who could throw a punch like that.

"Krissy, stop!" Sam yelled as Dean hit the ground. "We’re here for the same reason you are."

"I don’t need you blowhards micromanaging me," she barked, all sharp menace and full of promise, in a way that sent alarm bells coursing through Sam’s brain. He could practically hear the baritone growl in his head: _Take ‘em by surprise, put ‘em on the ground, give ‘em one good threat and they’ll turn tail and scram with piss running down their leg._

He was therefore entirely unsurprised when Dean jumped off the ground and made for the door, murder in his eyes and a word on his breath like a curse.

That word?

"Spencer."

*

Two days later they arrived at the compound Garth had constructed from the bones of Singer Salvage. Aside from the panic room and the library, the whole place was completely rehauled. They’d heard about it, yes, but hadn’t had occasion to check it out themselves. Sam let out a low whistle as the Impala’s tires screeched into a skidding stop too near the front door. Dean was showboating, like he always did when someone’s ass was in imminent threat of getting kicked.

Garth strolled down the steps, looking chipper and bright-eyed and generally full of positivity. Dean would undoubtedly find that annoying.

"Where is he?" Dean roared as he launched himself from the driver’s seat. "Where the hell is he, Garth? If you try to hide him from me I’ll put a silver bullet in your heart on fucking principle."

Garth tried to hide the stuttering of his step by coming to a full stop. “Who?” he asked, nonchalant, but his eyes shifted too quickly between unspecified points just over their shoulders.

"You know good and well who," Dean growled. "Eliot goddamn Spencer."

"Dean, watch your language," Garth said calmly. "There’s kids around."

"That’s exactly the problem," Dean responded.

"Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit," a new voice drawled from a window on their right. A compact guy with too-long hair leaned on the windowsill. "If it ain’t Dean Winchester in the flesh."

"Spencer," Sam acknowledged.

"And Sam too," Eliot said with a grin. "What brings you boys around here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Dean said, his controlled tone belied by the tension in his frame. "But we already know the answer to that, don’t we? They’re kids, Spencer."

"They’re hunters, Winchester."

Sam watched Dean’s fists curl tight against his thighs as his shoulders settled into a hard line. All the warning signs were there, and he should probably have stepped in, but Eliot Spencer could handle himself and Dean had issues to work out.

Dean crossed the space between himself and the windowsill faster than Sam thought humanly possible. The world narrowed to the singular point where Dean grabbed Eliot by his collar, and then the fan of Eliot’s hair as Dean dragged him from the windowsill and shoved him into the ground.

The fight was a storm, both men grappling for the upper hand and throwing in the only cheap, dirty shots they could land. Elbows met jaws, and knees skated so close to groins that Sam felt his own balls draw up in fear. Eliot finally managed to get Dean in some semblance of a choke hold as Dean stomped futilely in the general area of Eliot’s foot.

"Calm down before you get yourself hurt, Winchester," Eliot said.

Dean, after a moment in which his face achieved an alarming shade of purple, tapped weakly on the other man’s arm. Eliot released him, and they backed away from each other. They were both panting and sweaty, with rumpled hair and high spots of color on their cheeks.

Sam really tried not to think about certain parallels between this scene and others he’d walked in on.

*

**Miami Beach, Florida - Eleven Years Previously**

It started in an emergency room. 

Eliot had gotten into a scuffle on a routine job. It wouldn’t have been major except that he’d gotten pushed into a window. The cut was impossible for him to reach and wouldn’t stop bleeding, so he had to burn an ID to get stitched up at the local late-night clinic.

The clientele was the usual assortment. A couple of dinged-up frat guys on Spring Break, with ridiculous hair and t-shirts with school logos on them. One serious knife wound from a gang scuffle that went too far, a nurse hovering worriedly over him as she pressed a wad of gauze into his arm. The ubiquitous single moms coming off the night shift, too poor for health insurance and paying out the nose for this surprise visit. You could tell by the strain around the eyes and the gentle hands.

The only real problem was one guy, nursing what looked like a dislocated shoulder. He had the look. Hard around the mouth, a certain slant to his shoulders despite the injury, the alert eyes of someone who was looking for the next threat. Eliot assessed his options, then took the corner nearest that guy, putting his own back to the wall.

It wouldn’t be hard to lead the fight to the guy’s corner of the room, where the ladies with babies wouldn’t be hurt. A few choice blows on that bum shoulder would incapacitate the guy with no more collateral damage than either the left side table (if he swung right first) or the lamp sconce (if he threw him in the wall). Thus comforted, Eliot resettled the motel room towel against that awkward spot between his shoulder blades and leaned back.

He didn’t miss Shoulder Guy sizing him up the same way. A pair of startlingly green eyes assessed him coolly for a moment before Shoulder Guy angled his entire body toward Eliot. He appreciated the acknowledgment of himself as the superior threat.

It was, however, a tiny clinic. Their corner spots were on an edge of the room, about six chairs apart. The subtle glare-off got more intense, the level of wordless threat escalating, until it broke the barrier between dead serious and a bit ridiculous.

Let the record state that Shoulder Guy cracked into a grin first.

"Ex-Army?" he guessed.

Eliot shot him a small smile in return. “Ex, well, a lot of things.”

Shoulder Guy gave a not-quite Marine Shrug. (It’s a very distinctive shrug)

"Personally I’m taking out the frat guys on principle," Eliot joked when the other man said nothing.

"If you need a principle you can use the collared shirts," Shoulder Guy offered in return.

"I was gonna go with the bleached tips," Eliot said.

"Also a fair choice," Shoulder Guy allowed. "Plus they go to Baylor."

"A Texas man?" Eliot asked, perking up.

"Kansas," Shoulder Guy said apologetically. "We’ve got no respect for the Bears in Kansas either."

"The Bears are a joke," Eliot agreed.

Forty minutes passed in riffing about college football, and aside from an exaggerated freakout by Shoulder Guy when Eliot maligned the Aggies, it was generally painless and took Eliot’s mind off the blood trickling from his wound.

"Sure would like to get this set soon," Shoulder Guy said.

"I’m gonna bleed out on this chair, I can feel it," Eliot agreed.

"What’s wrong?" Shoulder Guy asked.

"A decent cut," Eliot said. "It’s just in a place that’s a damn bitch to reach on my own."

A flare of recognition, the knowledge that neither of them came willingly to this chop shop, passed between the two.

"I need a second person to put this shoulder back in place," Shoulder Guy said. "It’s literally a five-second job but I can’t get the leverage."

Twenty minutes later they were ensconced in the dingiest, most disgusting motel room that Eliot had ever seen in the continental United States. Something in the off-beat of his stride as he walked in must have clued Shoulder Guy in, because he turned with a wide grin and spread his arms. Blustering.

"The Executive Suite, buddy," he said on a chuckle. "Nothing but the finest for our friends in many former uniforms."

"Shut up and let me reset your shoulder."

One quick movement and an un-manly yelp later, Shoulder Guy was rolling his neck and shoulder to work out the kinks, wincing in pain. He walked to the dresser and pulled out a first-aid kit that was anything but standard (Eliot was sure he saw actual herbs in it). Eliot stripped his shirt off and straddled the only actual chair in the room.

Shoulder Guy was winding out some un-waxed dental floss when he asked, “So what did you do to get thrown into a window?”

"We gonna talk about the job?" Eliot said. "Really?"

Shoulder Guy threaded a curved needle as he shrugged.

"Retrieval," Eliot said shortly. "You?"

"Surprise attack from the target," Shoulder Guy said with a grifter’s grin. "I was distracted by the arson I was committing."

"Bragging gets you killed in this line of business, kid."

"Who said we were in the same business?" Shoulder Guy waggled his eyebrows as he approached Eliot with the needle. "Disinfectant of choice? I’ve got tequila and whiskey."

"Waste the whiskey, save the tequila for drinking."

"And here I thought we were going to be friends," Shoulder Guy said in mock-sadness as he used actual rubbing alcohol to disinfect the wound (smart ass).

The wound had time to get tender, Eliot told himself as he winced through the stitching process. That’s the only excuse for how hard he had to work to suppress a shiver.

"Alright, you’re good as new," Shoulder Guy said, clapping him on the bicep. "The name’s Dean, by the way. Dean Winchester."

Eliot had been getting tired of saying Shoulder Guy in his head, but they didn’t give out names easily in his line work. He was surprised by the display of trust. Something in the weight of the name told him it wasn’t an alias.

It was probably the lips, or the freckles, or the unexpected tenderness behind Dean’s unfairly-green eyes as he waited for a response, but Eliot did just about the dumbest thing he’d ever done and responded, “Eliot Spencer. Nice to meet you.”

Dean wasn’t in Eliot’s line of work. Not with those expressive eyes. The pupils were wrong for the strength of the light, and when you paired the excess pupil dilation to the catch in his breath and the reddening of his ears, it only added up to one conclusion. And that conclusion spelled trouble.

Eliot hopped out of the chair and put his shirt back on.

"Gone so soon?" Dean asked neutrally.

"Business," Eliot said shortly. The kind of business that had no place for green-eyed sexpots with sinful laughs and dexterous hands. No matter how pretty their smiles were.

"Take care of yourself, Spencer," Dean drawled.

Eliot shot him a farewell grin as he slid out the door into the night.

*

**Moscow, Russia - Two Months Previously**

It had surprised Eliot when one of his phones had started ringing. That phone had exactly one purpose and Eliot kept the number out of the kind of vicious, unquenchable sentiment he’d never admit to having. Which is why it was pretty surprising when he checked the caller ID and the number was unfamiliar. Out of the same sentiment, he answered it anyway.

"Yeah?" he growled into the speaker.

"Um, hi," said an unfamiliar male voice on the other end. "You’re a friend of Bobby Singer’s?"

"Who’s asking?”

"I’m Garth Fitzgerald the Fourth," came the response, fuzzy over the bad connection. "I don’t suppose you’ve… heard. About Bobby?"

Eliot had received this kind of phone call too many times to count. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

"I’m sorry you heard it from me," said Garth, with a little nervous laugh that made Eliot want to punch him. "Listen, he had your number on a pretty specific _Break Glass in Case of Emergency_ list.”

"Yeah?"

"Are you contracted for anything right now?"

"Nope."

"I don’t suppose you’d be interested in some freelance work?"

"I don’t do that kind of thing anymore."

"Oh god, no!" Garth wheezed. "Not that kind of thing. More in an - advisory - capacity?"

"Spit it out, Garth Fitzgerald the Fourth."

"I’ve got a group of hunters who need to be a little more up to scratch," Garth explained. "It’d be an easy job for a couple of months, just training them to be aware, some basic fighting techniques, that kind of thing. They’re pretty unprepared to deal with what’s out there and our resources are thin on the ground."

Training local resistance forces was something Eliot could do in his sleep, and he did indeed have a couple months of hiatus before the crew resumed work. Why the hell not?

*

**Present Day**

Dean was pissed as all hell. He was, to favor one of Eliot’s charming idioms, madder than a wet hen. 

The “Butter my butt and call me a biscuit” jab was just cruel. The fact that Eliot could probably incapacitate Dean half-drugged with both hands behind his back had escaped Dean’s notice for a couple minutes too long. Eliot only talked in southern-ese when he really wanted to piss Dean off. He did it deliberately. So it really wasn’t Dean’s fault he couldn’t hear the words, “Sweatin’ like a whore in church,” without getting a simultaneous eye-twitch and boner.

These were probably inappropriate thoughts to be having during their current Macho Manly Stare-Down of Death, but Dean had always had a problem thinking with his upstairs brain.

Eliot was smiling, shark-like and bright around the eyes, like he could read Dean’s thoughts.

*

**Northern Michigan - Eight Years Ago**

"Shh," Eliot whispered, trying to hush the frantic half-sob, half-scream combo coming from the state senator’s daughter he’d been sent to retrieve. "Shh, it’s okay, I’ve got you. I’m gonna take you home."

The dank cave wasn’t the optimal place for kidnappers to hang out, but he’d followed the girl’s trail all the way there. There were obscuring animal footprints and places where her trail dropped for the length of several trees that led him, in a moment of weakness, to attribute her abduction to superpowered panthers.

But he’d found her all the same.

He carefully removed her gag, at which point she started frantically whispering to him. "We were camping, oh my god, I don’t know what happened but it took the others. Look over there. It ate Chris like he was Sunday dinner, it’s coming after me next. What is it? WHAT IS IT?"

Oh great, she was one of the ones who lost their mind under stressful conditions.

"It’s just some guys who want a piece of your dad’s cash," he growled. "I’ll take care of them."

She started sobbing in earnest. “It’s not, it’s not. It’s a monster, sir. It’s twelve feet tall and has claws, it wants to eat us all.”

Eliot refrained from rolling his eyes, but only just barely. Which was when the senator’s daughter let out the most bone-chillingly high-pitched shriek ever produced by human vocal cords.

At about that time, Eliot was knocked off his feet by a teeth-shattering blow. He hit the wall of the cave hard enough that he had to blink furiously and stare at nothing for about four seconds. That was enough for another figure, slighter but taller, to hoist a flare gun through the gloom and shoot it into the chest of what indeed seemed to be a twelve-foot monster with claws.

But clearly that was Eliot’s apparent concussion talking.

"Hey, honey, look," a soothing voice said in the darkness. "It’s dead, okay? It’s not gonna hurt you any more. Let’s get you untied."

"Who are you?" she asked tremulously. Eliot had already recognized the voice, but hoped he was wrong.

"The name’s Dean Winchester," the dark figure responded. "I’m here to take you home."

A couple hours later, after a successful delivery of the target to her weeping parents (“Ah, let ‘em think it was kidnappers, it’s easier,” Dean had said), he was once again sitting in a motel room under Dean’s scalpel-sharp gaze. It was older, wearier, like he’d seen some awful things since the last time he’d made Eliot uncomfortable.

"So now I know what you do for a living," Eliot said evenly.

Green eyes met his over the steady rise of a whiskey glass, but Dean said nothing.

"You’re gonna tell me that’s not what you do?" Eliot said.

"What?" Dean scoffed. "Hunt the boogeyman?"

Eliot turned the silence tactic back on him, stalling for time as he grabbed a beer out of the motel mini-fridge.

"Okay, so maybe I do," Dean said finally. "What’s it to you?"

"Is Bigfoot real?"

Dean’s sharp bark of laughter was an unexpected treat. “No, that’s total fiction. Pretty much everything else, though… Yeah, it’s really out there.”

Eliot’s eyes, usually so firmly under his control, roved to the thin curtain covering the window as if he expected something unnatural to be peeking in. “How do you stop it?”

"Salt lines keep away most things, monsters don’t handle the purity well," Dean said, and Eliot’s hope that it had been an elaborate con faded. Nobody spoke with that much authority unless they were an expert. "Holy water for demons, salt and burn the remains of ghosts. The movies got the werewolf thing with the silver right, that also works for shapeshifters. They got it wrong with vampires, you gotta chop off their heads. Various wood-carved stakes for various old-world gods that pop up now and again. It’s not an exact science but there are some general rules."

Eliot drank more beer to stall for time while he thought of an intelligent response. Dean regarded him over the whiskey tumbler like he was used to bad reactions, and Eliot was determined not to have a bad reaction.

"Interesting line of work," he finally settled on as neutral enough.

"Keeps us busy," Dean allowed.

"Us?"

"Me and my brother, now. This is kind of what we do."

"Pay well?"

"Not usually," Dean admitted. "We skate by on hustling pool, along with other revenue streams that aren’t exactly legal."

"Not exactly legal is my middle name," Eliot said, raising his glass in a toast.

"I know this can be a lot to handle," Dean started.

"I’ve handled a lot worse," Eliot said.

The corners of Dean’s mouth crooked up around his glass like he doubted it, but Eliot forgave it just this once.

"You gonna let me patch up that slice on your arm or are you gonna go Bruce Willis and suffer in manly silence?" Dean asked.

The thought of Dean’s hands on him sent a spark down his spine, but Eliot only choked on his drink a tiny bit. “Yeah, sure man, whatever.”

Dean reached for his unique first aid kit. Eliot wasn’t going to ask about the herbs, but he imagined dark doings where herbs were packed into a wound while someone chanted spells in the background, because he was handling the supernatural thing really well. 

Fortunately for him, Dean only unrolled a spool of un-waxed floss, like before. Eliot hadn’t questioned his competence before, when he thought Dean was just another hard-living hitter, but now that competence made him uncomfortable. If Dean could so casually sew a man back together, it spoke volumes about the threats in his world. Not many guys spent their nights stitching a four-inch slash in the bicep of an almost-complete stranger, in the corner room of a motel whose better days were somewhere in the sixties.

Eliot sat on the edge of the bed, and Dean sank down next to him sideways to get at the cut. One leg was on the floor next to Eliot’s and the other curled up with his foot under his opposite thigh. His knee came to rest just behind Eliot’s back. The space between them was pretty much zilch.

Eliot looked up at the ceiling and prayed for strength. The nature of his job meant that there was a lot of casual sex, and he sure as hell wasn’t complaining about that, but there were some people he steered a wide berth around. He had an instinct for it, something in the quirk of a smile or the sound of a laugh that told him those people would be hard to walk away from.

Dean fell squarely into that category. It wasn’t even instinct anymore, he knew from experience. Three years ago he’d cut his losses and high-tailed it out of there, but earlier in the cave he’d recognized his voice immediately. He didn’t need to save Dean’s voice into his mental library and yet there it was.

Dean mistook his glowering for a reaction to the pain, and offered him the bottle of tequila. Eliot took it, letting the burn in his esophagus quell his rising panic.

He needed to focus.

He needed to get out.

Dean swiped an antiseptic wipe over his completed stitches and did some decidedly not-by-the-book shit with the gauze and the wrap that turned Eliot’s head in interest. Skills learned in the field were different than skills learned in training. You could tell a lot about a man by how he twisted gauze around a wound.

Not relevant, Spencer.

Get out of there.

But his cut was all stitched up and bandaged, and Dean still hadn’t moved out of his personal bubble. If anything, he’d shifted his knee more firmly into Eliot’s lower back. His dangling leg had settled firmly against Eliot’s own left leg.

Dean may have, and Eliot would never be certain on this fact (and they would argue about it considerably in later years), hooked his ankle around Eliot’s.

Dean’s breath hitched, and there was the pupil-dilation thing again. And a certain redness on the tips of his decidedly pointed years. Tequila bottle still in hand, Eliot took another drink to stall for time.

Deft, broad fingers stole the bottle from his grasp and Dean twisted his whole body to set the tequila safely on the floor, out of the way of their legs. In an abstract way, Eliot could get behind the idea of not wasting any alcohol, but in the present moment he was distracted by the interesting bit of stomach exposed from under Dean’s t-shirt as he stowed the bottle safely out of kicking range.

A very loud clicking noise filled the motel room and Eliot realized belatedly that it was his own throat closing over a dry swallow of anticipation.

He didn’t have long to anticipate, because Dean’s hands went to his hair. There was some strict rule about not touching the hair that he’d meant to impart. Too late, now, as Dean’s fingers were winding their way through it with distressing familiarity, as if he’d played this moment in his mind for the last three years. God knows Eliot did.

And then Dean’s mouth was on his, and Eliot stopped evaluating the situation and started living in it. Several hours later, they were both sweaty and gross and kind of sticky in the best possible way.

"Well," Eliot said, rolling out of the bed. "I’ve got to get on the road."

Dean smiled, all post-orgasmic and quite frankly adorable. “Story of my life.”

Eliot pulled on his clothes mechanically, his brain working through a problem. “What happens if I run into another one of those sons of bitches?”

Dean rolled to his side and reached out for the little pad of paper stamped with the motel logo. He scribbled for a second, then held out the paper to Eliot.

"Call that number," he instructed. "If we can’t get to you, we can at least talk you through it."

Dean being what Dean was, Eliot shouldn’t have been surprised the first time he called that number. Instead of Dean’s low drawl on the other end, it had been a man named Bobby Singer.

Eliot being what Eliot was, he shouldn’t have been disappointed.

*

**Present Day**

"I didn’t know you were doing the child soldier bit nowadays," Dean said, trying to regain the upper hand.

"You know that’s not true," Eliot responded on a growl. "These kids are out there doing this shit of their own free will. They had better be prepared for what’s gonna happen."

"They’re _kids_ , Spencer,” Dean said.

"Not just kids," Garth piped up. "A lot of hunters roll through here, Dean. Sometimes for a day, sometimes for a week, but they all pick up some useful skills from Eliot."

"I’m sure," Dean said flatly. "How to kill a guy six different ways before he hits the ground? Killing monsters is hard work. All Spencer’s teaching them is how easy it is to kill _people_.”

Referring to Eliot’s past was a low blow. Dean knew it. From the sharp intake of breath behind him, Sam knew it. 

"You could teach them all about the finer points of that," Eliot said quietly, rage loosening the sharp edges of his joints until he was terrifying in his calmness. "With all that interrogation experience, I mean."

So Eliot wasn’t afraid to get in some jabs of his own. 

"Stow the crap, Spencer," Dean said, "I’m putting my foot down on this one."

"Dean - " Garth started, because he was dumb enough to draw attention to himself while Dean was this angry.

"And you," Dean rounded on him. "You let this happen. You asked him to come here. To Bobby’s place? Do you think Bobby would like what you were doing to these kids?"

"We aren’t doing anything to them," Eliot interjected, drawing the heat away from Garth (probably intentionally, the bastard). "We’re keeping them alive. You and Sam knew this shit at their age and it kept you alive."

"This shit isn’t their job," Dean said. "We’re stuck in it and hey, that’s fine, that’s the hand we got dealt. But I am not going to stand by and let you suck a whole bunch of kids into this mess."

"They’re already in it," Eliot argued. "You think this stuff stops existing because they put their fingers in their ears and hum?"

"Well they sure as hell shouldn’t be chasing it down."

Sam was starting to look thoughtful, which meant that Dean had officially lost control of this conversation. He hated Eliot Spencer.

*

**Los Angeles, California - Six Years Ago**

"Hello, ma’am, we’re from the electric company," Dean said, giving the receptionist his most winning smile. "We’re here about the lights on the eighth floor."

"Oh, of course," she said. "HR’s been getting a ton of complaints, thank God you’re here."

Visitor badges firmly attached to their uniforms, Sam and Dean started walking toward the elevators.

“You think they’d like our method of solving the flickering-light problem?” Sam joked.

"Well, I’d be happy to look at the wiring, but ganking Josephine Ridley’s ghost is probably easier," Dean responded, pressing the elevator button.

"True," Sam allowed, "but we’re still trying to steal a piece of heirloom jewelry off the neck of an office worker in the middle of the day. I’ll feel a lot better when we’ve burned that locket."

"Your mouth to God’s ears, Sammy," Dean said as the elevator doors closed.

A loud noise from the top of the elevator had both boys gripping their (solid iron) wrenches tightly.

"Oh god, anywhere but the elevator," Dean muttered.

Dean was prepared for a lot of things. He had the demon knife in his jacket, a gun in his waistband, and a holy water flask in his front left pocket. But nothing could have prepared him for the sight of a pretty, lithe blonde girl dressed in black dropping into the elevator.

"Who are you people?" she asked, demanding as anything, as if she wasn’t the one who’d just jumped into their fucking elevator car.

"Who the hell are you?" Sam shot back.

"This job is not double contracted," she growled. Dean supposed it was meant to be threatening.

"What job?" Sam asked.

"Don’t pretend we don’t all know why we’re here," she snapped. "We’ve got it under control, okay."

"Listen, sweetheart," Dean said. "I know why I’m here. I know why my buddy over there is here. But I have no idea what you’re doing here and you better start talking."

The girl paused and cocked her head to the side. “No,” she said, and Dean was about to argue when she continued, “Two guys. 6’4”, 250, annoying face. 6’1”, 215, angry.”

Dean made the “This Girl is a Space Cadet” face at Sam, who shrugged.

"Yeah, they’re green," she said, flicking her eyes to Dean. "Yeah. Yeah." A deep sigh.

"Lady, what are you doing?" Sam asked. She shushed him so emphatically that Dean almost laughed.

"Eliot, are you sure?" she continued.

Dean’s stomach sank down and made a new home behind his left kneecap. The blonde turned her head enough for him to see the earbud in her left ear, and he started putting the pieces together. The elevator doors slid open.

"Goddammit," he muttered. "Hey, lady, we’re gonna go. Have fun talking to yourself and playing in an elevator shaft, that seems like a fulfilling hobby." Anything to keep her from realizing he knew she was on _that kind_ of job.

"C’mon, Sammy," he said to his increasingly confused-looking brother.

"Eliot says to tell you hi," the girl called after him. Dammit.

Sam looked at her over his shoulder, brow furrowed. “That girl is the poster child for Say No to Drugs.”

"She had some space-age ear thing," Dean said. "She’s not crazy, she’s a thief."

"Right, because she’s so inconspicuous," Sam scoffed. "Wait, if she was really talking to someone… Dean, who’s Eliot?"

"Eliot is," Dean said, then paused while he came up with a satisfyingly vague answer. "Eliot’s an old friend."

"An old friend or an _old friend?_ ”

"We don’t have time for this, Sam," Dean said. "Right now we have to get the locket and get the hell out of here. He knows that I know he’s here, and if Eliot is here, so is trouble."

"What kind of trouble?"

"Usually the kind where people die, and I’d like it if those people weren’t us," Dean said. "Now find Ridley’s granddaughter."

"You know, I don’t do that kind of thing anymore," said a voice behind him.

"Spencer," Dean said, carefully neutral, as he turned around.

"Winchester," Eliot responded just as casually.

"Nice getup," Dean said, gesturing to Eliot’s janitor uniform. "What do you mean, you don’t do that kind of thing anymore?"

"I’m in a different, less lethal line of work," Eliot responded.

"Well whatever you’re doing, keep it off the eighth floor," Dean said, lowering his voice as a group of office workers walked by.

"Hey man, your shit’s not the kind I wanna get mixed up in either," Eliot said, causing Sam’s eyebrows to raise. "But it’s also the kind of thing that could seriously interfere with our work."

"Five minutes, tops, we just gotta con little Miss Ridley out of the locket she’s wearing," Dean promised. "Then we’ll be out of your hair."

"Parker, did you get that?" Eliot asked, presumably into his own ear bud. "I don’t care, trust me when I say this is important.” 

He turned back to Dean and said, "She’ll have it in two minutes. Guys, push the schedule back by five minutes, okay? I’ll fill y’all in later."

"Will someone please explain to me what is going on?" Sam said.

"Sam, this is Eliot," Dean said, resigned. "Eliot, this is my brother Sam."

"Nice to meet you, Eliot, but that’s not an explanation."

"It’s a long story," Dean said, waving his hand. "Emergency room, wendigo, senator’s daughter, good times were had by all."

The corner of Eliot’s mouth twitched upward.

"You hunted a wendigo solo?" Sam hissed.

"You were on that voodoo thing with Bobby," Dean said dismissively. "You remember."

"Oh yeah," Sam said. "When you were being annoyingly cool about the going to hell thing and I couldn’t stand to be around you."

"What going to hell thing?" Eliot said intently.

"That’s an even longer story," Dean responded, hoping the crazy blonde showed up soon. "We don’t really have the time."

Eliot crossed his arms, implacable. “Do not stand here and tell me that hell is real and you vacationed there.”

"I got out eventually," Dean said with a shrug. Sam rolled his eyes.

"We are not done talking about this, Winchester," Eliot growled as Parker appeared with the locket. 

"Wait, hell’s not real, right?" Parker said interestedly.

"Not now, Parker, we’ve got a job to do," Eliot snapped, dropping the locket in Dean’s outstretched hand. "Alright, guys, situation resolved, let’s get on with it."

"You’re busy, we’ll just - " Dean made vague hand gestures toward the exit.

"Yeah, get on out of here," Eliot agreed. "Don’t leave town before you explain that hell thing to me."

"We’ve actually got a pretty tight schedule," Dean said. "There’s big shit going down right now."

"Don’t leave town," Eliot repeated, a threat.

"Fine," Dean relented.

Sam may or may not have made whiplash noises on the way back to the elevator.

"Cut that out, Sam."

"So he’s the second kind of old friend," Sam said, valiantly trying to keep a straight face.

"He is not - we did not - " Dean spluttered, and he could feel his ears turning red. "That’s none of your business."

"Well, on the bright side," Sam said, refusing to shut up as they rode the elevator down. "If this all goes sideways and Lilith manages to spring Lucifer from the cage, I’m adding the sexy assassin who violated my brother to my zombie apocalypse team."

"He’s not an assassin."

"So you _did_ sleep with him.”

"I will punch you right in the throat."

"Wow, sleeping with a guy who looks like he could murder you with his bare hands has changed you, Dean," Sam teased as they walked through the lobby. 

"You know, I feel like I’ve been a good brother to you," Dean said, feigning hurt. "And this is how you repay me?"

Sam cackled with glee as they got into the Impala, and only a face full of drive-thru food shut him up.

*

**Present Day**

"You see," Garth said, gesturing at the computer monitors in what he’d affectionately called The Batcave, "this map is a real-time monitor of where every hunter in our network is located."

He mashed a couple buttons on a keyboard and another screen popped up. “This program identifies keywords in local news stories to locate possible supernatural activity. When it gets a hit, I just pull up the number of the nearest hunter and get them on it.”

"That’s pretty impressive," Sam said.

"That’s not all," Garth said, wagging a finger. "The computer keeps track of hunting reports and uses them to send the most experienced hunters after the things that are more lethal. For instance, if shit goes down and there’s a high possible body count, and you guys are within five hundred miles, it’ll auto-match you to the case over an inexperienced hunter who’s just down the block."

"Did you write all these programs?" Sam asked.

"One of Eliot’s associates helped," Garth said on a grin.

"Dammit, Hardison," Dean growled.

"Come on, Dean," Sam said. "It does look like they’re taking precautions."

"It’s not… terrible," Dean allowed. "Distract the kids with salt-and-burns and send the heavy hitters after the more dangerous things."

"And then, after a certain number of cases in their file, they move up to supervised hunts with the - as you call them - heavy hitters," Garth said.

"So we’re not sending kids into battle with 550 cord and a couple salt rounds," Eliot finally spoke up. "The system works. And they don’t even go out on the routine stuff unless I say they’re ready."

"Who’s gonna do that when you go back to your crew?" Dean asked belligerently.

Garth fidgeted. “We kind of hoped you would.”

"Oh, great, yeah," Dean said, fending off the rising panic. "Put me in charge of whether kids are ready to die or not. Absolutely. Great plan."

"There aren’t that many of them," Eliot said, and then went in for the kill. "Mostly they just need a place to keep them out of trouble. Nobody comes into this life willingly. Most of ‘em have dead parents because of some freak of nature or another, it’s this or foster care."

"And you’ve seen how well that worked out with Krissy," Sam pointed out.

Kids were his weakness and they damn well knew it. He wasn’t going to send a bunch of spooked teenagers into the system, only for them to go out and get hurt trying to avenge their parents or some shit. He didn’t even have to say anything. The second his shoulders slumped in defeat, everyone else started smiling.

"This doesn’t change the fact that you should have told me about this," Dean snapped at Eliot. "You can’t just show up here like it’s not my business."

“It’s not your business,” Eliot shot back. “You’re the one who put me in touch with Bobby in the first place.”

“Well if I had known you were gonna dive headfirst into this shit, I sure as hell wouldn’t have.”

“What I do is not, and never has been, any of your business,” Eliot reminded him. 

The words on the tip of Dean’s tongue - _everything you do is my business_ \- got swallowed back the second he realized he wanted to say them. There was a time and a place for that kind of shit, namely the corner of main street and not-gonna-happen, precisely at never o’clock. He didn’t want to say it and Eliot sure as hell didn’t want to hear it.

“Fine,” he finally said. “Garth, keep me in the loop on all this shit. C’mon, Sammy.”

*

**Boston - Five Years Ago**

“Hey listen, Bobby,” Dean said, “Sam and I found some weird stuff happening in Boston. Any ideas about a monster - maybe dog-shaped, maybe people-shaped, we haven’t nailed it down - that abducts children, including unborn ones? How does it even do that?”

“Aswang,” Bobby said promptly. “Dispatched with a whip made of stingray tails, or beheading if you can get close enough. Your buddy Eliot said it was a slippery son of a bitch, but it’s handled already.”

Dean’s mind went blank for three seconds before he processed what Bobby had said. _“My buddy Eliot?”_

“Yeah, he called me up and said one of their clients had a weird neighbor and it might be our kinda thing,” Bobby said. “It was, he handled it, end of story.”

“Why didn’t you call an actual hunter, Bobby?”

“The kid usually does just fine,” Bobby said.

“Usually?” Dean said so piercingly that his voice almost cracked. “How often does he contact you, Bobby?”

“Once or twice a year,” Bobby said offhandedly.

“And you didn’t think I should know that?” Dean asked. He could feel his jaw start to do the twitching thing it did when he got pissy.

“You want a rundown of everyone who calls me?” Bobby barked, sounding pissy himself. “It’s a long list, boy.”

Dean scrubbed a hand across his face. “No, you’re right, I just - I didn’t know, that’s all. That he actually called you.”

“You’re the one who gave him my number,” Bobby said, and there was starting to be a hint of a question in his voice that Dean would rather not deal with.

“Yeah,” he said vaguely. “Listen, Bobby - “

Several different ways to end that sentence ran through his head, everything from stern injunctions against encouraging Eliot to hunt, to asking if he sounded okay, to a request for his number.

“I don’t got all day,” Bobby said, reminding Dean that it had been too many long seconds since he’d spoken.

“Nevermind,” he said finally.

“Call if you run into any trouble,” Bobby said, in a gruff tone that meant he was trying to be tactful. Then he hung up. Bobby was never one for niceties like saying goodbye.

Sam walked in with a paper bag full of what smelled like burgers. “Any luck with Bobby?”

“Aswang, but it’s dead already,” Dean said shortly.

“Somebody got to it before we did?” Sam said, mildly impressed. “Nice. Bobby’s got some good hunters in his rolodex, I guess.”

Dean made a vague noise of agreement and stood up. He walked over, grabbed a cheeseburger out of the bag, and tore into it more viciously than was strictly necessary.

“Anyone we’ve heard of?” Sam continued.

Dean growled around a mouthful of red meat. Sam raised his eyebrows. Under his brother’s steady gaze, Dean swallowed the bite of cheeseburger.

“Eliot Spencer,” he finally said.

“Eliot Spencer?” Sam repeated. “The _Sam, Go Do Research or Something in LA at Eleven O’Clock at Night and Don’t Hurry Back_ Eliot Spencer?”

“Very funny.”

“He’s hunting now?” That annoyingly impressed tone was back in his voice.

“Apparently,” Dean said shortly.

“Kinda makes you feel bad for the monsters,” Sam joked. “You gonna call him?”

“Why?”

“I dunno, man, it’s the apocalypse,” Sam said. “You’re here, he’s here. Why the hell not?”

“Exactly,” Dean said, defensive. “We’ve got shit to do. I don’t have time to call up some guy I’ve had a couple flings with, because in case you haven’t noticed, we’re busy trying to save the world.”

“Ah,” Sam said. “You’re mad because you like him.”

Dean was too busy choking on his burger in surprise to respond, which unfortunately mean that Sam kept talking. It was a rookie move to let Sam get on a roll about feelings.

“You always do this. You actually like somebody and you run as fast as you can, as far away as you can, and you never actually let yourself enjoy knowing them. The only people you actually talk to you are your brother, a grouchy old man, and a socially-inept angel.”

“Everyone else I know is dead!” Dean finally countered.

“Eliot’s not dead,” Sam pointed out. Dean could practically see the mental back-patting Sam was giving himself. It made Dean’s right eye start twitching.

“Not gonna happen, Sammy,” he said gruffly.

Which is, of course, when someone started knocking on the door. Sam reached for his pistol and so did Dean, cocking it as he padded quietly to the door. He put his hand over the eyehole to block the light (shooting someone through the eyehole was the oldest trick in the book), but when nothing happened he put his actual eye to it and let out a heartfelt, “Goddammit.”

“Missed you too,” Eliot said when he opened the door. He waved off Dean’s questioning look, adding, “Blah blah computers, something about traffic cams, pretty sure the word algorithm was in there somewhere, don’t ask me to explain what Hardison does. I told him to tell me if your car pulled into town.”

“Why?” Dean managed to spit out.

“Because if you’re here, so is the boogeyman,” Eliot said reasonably, scooting around Dean to get into the room. “Hey, Sam.”

“Hey, Eliot,” Sam said, mouth half full of burger. “Heard you killed the aswang for us.”

“That was some seriously creepy shit,” Eliot said, catching the burger Sam tossed to him. “Your job sucks.”

“You’re telling me,” Sam replied with a grin. “I suppose you gave up on the more arcane ways to dispose of it and just beheaded the sucker, right?”

“Only because it’s hard to find a good albularyo in Boston on short notice,” Eliot said with a shrug.

Dean stood next to the door, arms crossed, glaring at them. This was not happening. He was not hanging out in a shitty motel room while the two of them exchanged what passed in their world for small talk. He was not watching his brother talk to his - friend? Occasional bedmate? Embarrassing teenager-style crush? - whatever. This was unacceptable.

“Relax, man,” Eliot said, throwing a balled-up burger wrapper at him. “I just got you a night off.”

Sam’s eyebrows lifted and the corner of his mouth quirked. He didn’t even have to say, “That’s not all he’s gotten off for you. I’m gonna scram so you guys can stare deeply into each other’s eyes and talk about your feelings,” because Dean could hear him thinking it.

“Shut up, Sammy.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Shut up anyway.”

When Sam made vague excuses and high-tailed it out of there, Dean and Eliot most definitely did not talk about their feelings, or much of anything to be honest. Even though the phrases, “God yes, just like that,” and, “Harder,” were used pretty liberally.

That was just how they operated.

*

**Present Day**

“That’s it?” Eliot called out from the porch.

“What?” Dean said, turning back from the Impala’s door to glare at him.

“Keep me updated, see you later?” Eliot said, in the growly drawl he used when he imitated Dean.

Dean checked over his shoulder, but Sam was in the passenger seat putting on a pretty good show of being totally enthralled by the screen of his phone.

“Don’t go all cagey like everyone doesn’t know what your problem is,” Eliot said. 

“Yeah, and what’s my problem?”

Eliot walked down the steps, advancing on him. “You don’t like me in your space. You don’t like me in your world. You’ve made that clear.”

“No, I don’t,” Dean said fiercely. “I didn’t mean to get you all mixed up in this.”

“Well it’s a little late for that, Winchester,” Eliot said, getting up in his personal space. He wasn’t being provocative, he was being intimidating. “I can’t go back to running cons on rich assholes full-time when all this shit is lurking in the bushes. I know you don’t like me in your territory with your people. Jesus Christ, you were a demon and nobody told me until it was over.”

“Wasn’t your problem,” Dean said shortly.

“Like I said, you’ve made that clear,” Eliot said, poking him right in the sternum. “But I’m not gonna walk away when these people need help, that’s not me. You can’t piss on the entire hunter world to claim it and expect me to stay away.”

“Man, I’m not trying to - “

“That’s exactly what you’re doing,” Eliot interrupted. “You don’t mix business with pleasure. I get it. But I’m not your goddamn boyfriend, and you don’t get to deprive these people of a useful resource because you touched that resource’s dick.”

Dean took a step back. “Are we talking about feelings? Do we need to make hot chocolate and snuggle?”

“I found some good people, man,” Eliot responded, having the grace to look a little embarrassed. “Apparently normal people have feelings and talk about them.”

“We’re not normal people.”

“Nah, we aren’t,” Eliot agreed. “And we’re not gonna have some fucking moment, either. I just know what your feelings are and I’m telling you they’re bullshit so we can move on down the road.”

“Duly noted,” Dean said, because he didn’t really know what else to say. _Eliot Spencer, you moron, try not to get killed because I just realized it would break my fucking heart_ didn’t really seem appropriate.

He should have known Eliot would know exactly what he couldn’t say. And he did, because something behind his eyes shifted and suddenly he was pressed against Dean like a leech and pulling him down by the collar. Their mouths crashed together with more violence than most people would tolerate, but Dean didn’t mind.

“God, you idiots are emotionally constipated,” Sam muttered as he stomped by to go back inside. Good plan, considering Dean wasn’t planning on doing anything but kissing Eliot for the foreseeable future.

*

**Six Months Later**

The familiar refrain of Krissy’s one-woman performance of _I’m Going Hunting Alone Whether You Assholes Like it or Not_ assaulted Sam’s ears as he entered the kitchen of the bunker. 

They’d moved their base of operations from Bobby’s place two months earlier, when a veritable army of demons had figured out the location and swooped in to wreak havoc. Garth still wouldn’t stop mourning the panic room, and Sam was inclined to agree with him on that point.

“I’m ready,” Krissy insisted.

“I’ll give you this,” Dean said. “You’re better than most of the kids here. But you’re still not going on solo hunts for at least another year.”

“I’m better than every hunter here, not just the kids,” she whined. “You’re being unreasonable.”

“I’m being completely reasonable,” Dean argued. “Now go help Cas bring in the tomatoes.”

“It’s no use,” Cas said, entering the kitchen with a defeated slump to his shoulders. “The tomatoes aren’t thriving. I don’t understand what happened, I did it just like the book said.”

“They’re getting too much sun,” Eliot opined from the doorway. “The books are always wrong about that.”

“Eliot!” Krissy squealed, launching herself into his arms. “You’ve been gone forever!”

“Unlike you, I’ve got a day job,” he teased as he disentangled himself. “How’s life, guys?”

“Fair to middlin’,” Dean said with a grin.

“Terrible.” Cas was clearly still thinking about the tomatoes.

Sensing an opportunity, Sam responded with, “Life would be better if you’d send Hardison this way to help me work out the kinks in the computer system.”

“He’s a busy guy,” Eliot insisted. “I’ll see what I can do, but Parker’s been talking about putting the Hope Diamond on top of their wedding cake so he’s doing damage control.”

“Sounds like Parker,” Dean said, smiling at Eliot in a way that made Sam want to go scrub his brain out with bleach. “What’s for dinner?”

“I just drove for twenty-four hours,” Eliot complained. “I’m not a machine.”

“There were enough good tomatoes to make spaghetti sauce,” Cas said, a hopeful note in his voice.

“I hate all of you,” Eliot said menacingly.

“You love us,” Dean responded automatically. Then, as he realized what he’d just said, his face turned the most alarming shade of white that Sam had seen in months. Dean coughed, Eliot looked at the ceiling.

“You have to love us, we’re adorable,” Sam joked, swooping in to cover the awkward moment. God forbid either of them admit that they were kind of attached to each other.

Those emotionally constipated motherfuckers.


End file.
